Apples, pecans and cinnamon nestled inside yeasty yummy dough balls that pull apart... crunchy caramelized pecans and apple bits and soft moist dough... Are you salivating yet? I was so excited to make this recipe since I had a bunch of pecans in my pantry (Costco!) and was looking for ways to use them. The recipe is really easy to make, especially if you've worked with yeast doughs before. Great for baking with kids too. When I described this recipe to a friend she said oh it sounds like 'pull-aparts' which is a term I hadn't heard before, but does describe how you eat this creation. Just pull off a piece of dough and munch!

This is the time of year when we want comfort food. It's cold (really, really cold) it's snowy (really, really snowy) and all you wanna do is curl up with a cocoa and a good book in front of a fire... with a piece of this cake. Fruity, tasty, deliciousness in one bite. It's quick and uncomplicated to make. Plus: who can resist a cake with the words 'Dimply Plum' in its title?

The inspiration for this pink, fluffy, beautiful creation struck on an ordinary day. And suddenly, the world changed. I kid you not. Okay, that's a little melodramatic but this is SO delicious, a grown-up treat (there's some alcohol in it) yet a nod to the traditional strawberry shortcake.

The sponge cake (which contains no oil or margarine, so it's practically healthy) is a great vehicle for the star of the show: whipped cream with blended, macerated strawberries - yes, the same as I gave you in this recipe.

These chocolate chip meringue cookies are studded with dark chocolate chip chunks and lightly scented with citrus zest. They are a good snack eaten individually or can be served as a desert on top or crumbled over a scoop of ice cream. A basic meringue recipe is great thing for using up extra egg whites and it doesn't take too many to make this dessert. The recipe below was cobbled together from a few different places online, my main criteria was to find one that used the exact number of egg whites I had and a recipe that wasn't too sweet. I didn't want the sugar in the recipe to overwhelm the dark chocolate flavour.The final piece in this recipe is citrus sugar. I made this by drying out lemon, tangerine and orange zest and mixing in a few tablespoons of the chopped zest to each jar with one cup of sugar. Each type of zest was a slightly different colour and it looked very pretty sitting in jars on my counter, so I'm now thinking of this as a possible christmas present...I'm not sure how much it impacted the final taste of the meringue, but it may have added a subtle note of citrus to complement the chocolate.

"When you can't resist taking another one, you know it's good!" said my father about this recipe.

The recipe for these actually comes from the lid of a Quaker Oats canister my sister bought a few years ago. They're simple, quick and easy to make (like most of the recipes I enjoy making). What I love about these in particular is that they're 'healthy' (oil vs butter, mostly oatmeal with a little flour) so I don't feel bad eating more than one. They're crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, with just a small hit of chocolate to satisfy the taste buds. A family favourite.

You know the feeling you get when you want to bake, but then you picture all the dishes you`re going to have to wash after and lose interest? Worry no more. This is a one-bowl, NO mixer recipe. Ingredients you should have in your pantry, easy technique, minimal cleanup: happiness!

The reason the word 'dairy' is in the cake's name is because according to Jewish dietary laws, milk and meat cannot be eaten together. Therefore, after having a meat meal I would have to wait an allotted amount of time before eating it. Vice versa, after eating this cake, I would have to wait a (considerably less than after meat) appropriate time as well. Therefore, a food's status (meat, dairy, or pareve which means neutral) has to be known.This is a moist, tasty chocolate cake. You will love it.

Honeyed Pear Clafouti Tart by Caitlin

Ingredients for the clafouti filling

This clafouti, a delicious confection of pear, honey and a hint of lemon, will not last long once you take it out of the oven. The quality of the honey will really influence the final product. For this reason, I highly recommend using at least 2 tb artisanal honey, out of the 5 tb the recipe calls for. I used a lovely autumnal honey blend from an organic farm in Quebec, which I bought in Montreal’s Jean Talon Market at a store that stocks food products from all over Quebec called Marche des Saveurs. The selection was incredible, I had so much trouble choosing just one jar to take home! This recipe is a perfect showcase for that really nice flavourful, you splurged at the farmers market jar of honey; in fact the taste of honey in the first bite of this clafouti can almost be overpowering when you have a warm piece, but the flavour seems to fade a little when it is served at room temperature.

Just-crispy edges, soft chewy chocolatey inside, powdery sweet coating…. As a chocoholic I adore this cookie. Growing up I always heard it called ‘crinkle cookie’, I suppose due to the crinkled look it has as the cookie bakes and ‘cracks’ and the icing sugar topping becomes zig-zaggy (if that isn’t a word I just invented it). As an adult, my best friend Charlotte (aka Cupcake Princess!) told me it’s her favourite cookie to make but she called them chocolava cookies. Whatever you decide to call it, this confection is a delicious chocolate explosion, so a couple of weeks ago when my brother Chef Ari (expert on all things cooking) sent me this recipe, titled 'Chocolava Cookies' I knew I had to make it.